Connecting Assessment

I’ve recently designed a rubric for blogging that I shared in this previous post. I’ve been using this in my classroom over the past weeks and have found that the specific criteria and descriptions listed on the rubric have been effective at helping students to improve the posts they have been writing.

With this in mind, I’ve been working on another assessment to help students think about the connections and global understandings they are establishing. I’ve developed a rubric and a checklist to use in a classroom with middle school students. While I’ve not yet used this in a classroom, I will not use it to assign a grade to these activities, but instead to be a conversation starter with students. It could possibly be used in a small group setting or as a self assessment tool. I can also see sitting with students several times over the course of a school year (possibly once every two months?) and having a conversation with them about connections and global issues. Giving students the rubric and checklist will help them to work towards developing more effective connections around the world for learning.

Great stuff Clarence,
I love it and just thinking out loud (about thinking)… perhaps after doing this a second time students could either reflect on changes and/or share with you or peers how their habits or community has changed over time. The other thing is to ask them if there is anything they do connect and learn online that is not expressed in this assessment.

This kind of expectation: ‘comments ask questions and drive forward thinking’ really works to show what kind of commenting is valued. Excellent!

Thanks David and Wendy for stopping by and leaving your thoughts behind. Doing this multiple times with kids in a classroom as I had envisioned I would completely imagine taking your suggestion and asking kids to reflect on how their networks and connections are changing. This is the great thing about using a rubric multiple times (as I do the blogging rubric that I use in my classroom) when you keep them, you can look back at how your thinking is changing and hopefully improving.

Thanks so much for sharing. This really gets at the responsibility students have with their commenting in terms of helping to move others forward with their writing, AND, with being appropriate. This rubric will definitely promote valuable conversation with students.